Giving Up

[shunt]

So my son just turned 7. Do to his extreme problems at school and at home, I had him assessed early this spring. He was diagnosed with a learning disorder and conduct disorder. He has extensive support at school. And yet everyday he hurts kids and the staff around him. He stabs them with his pencils, throws his shoes at them, pinches, he grabs at them...the list goes on. The other day at the pool he walked up to a kid and said wanna see something funny? and poked the kid in the eye laughing. He tries holding kids underwater too.

He has no friends. He is miserable to me every moment of everyday. Everything is a huge battle with screaming and fighting and stomping. His tone of voice is always snotty or argumentative. He will do anything to get out of doing everything except play Nintendo and watch tv. He sneaks up repeatedly every single night to sneak tv/Nintendo. He is mean to animals to the point that you cannot leave him alone with them. I have put him on schedule, consistent bedtimes, no junk food or process food. He has consistent rules at home. He has to earn his time on the Nintendo. Homework before tv. But nothing helps. He hardly gets rewards and I keep making the tasks to earn rewards simplier and simplier and he still rarely ends up earning them. I try to do "fun" stuff in hopes that having positive life experiences will make him happier but it doesn't help. I am slowly getting to the point that im too embarrassed and scared for others safety to take him anywhere.

I cry, a lot. And when im not crying, lately I find myself shutting down. I dread picking him up from school/daycare, to hear who and how he hurt someone today. I dread waking up in the morning knowing the battle is about to start again. I'm coming to the conclusion that there isn't anything I can do and that this is my life.

So here I am on a parenting support forum.

 

[BusynMember]

I'm really sorry you had to join us and are having such a hard time. Did your son, by any chance, have a very chaotic life during his infancy and toddlerhood? Sounds like he could have a form of attachment disorder, which often happens when the first three years (and sometimes beyond) are full of many caregivers, chaos, lack of one solid caregiver and stability, and even abuse. Was he adopted? Did you divorce very early on and then remarry or have a boyfriend? Anything at all?

Right off the bat to me, as a layman and not a neuropsychologist, it sounds like some sort of attachment disorder because of the meanness involved. Does he pee and poop inappropriately too or love fire? Anything else of significance? Can you give us a background on your son, including information on his biological gene pool on both sides?

My first recommendation is to take him to a neuropsychologist and the sooner the better, but a neuropsychologist would likely miss anything related to attachment problems, if indeed that is his problem. Hurting animals is serious. I hope you no longer have any. We lived with a, what I call, dangerous child and he killed two dogs.

Throughout all of this, understand that this is not your fault and try to take care of yourself as often as you can by doing nice things for yourself and leaving your son to other relatives so you can get respite. Is there a father around? An understanding relative (usually others don't understand though).

I did raise a child who hurt others and was mean to animals. Not quite to your son's extent. We got him help, but he is an adult now and still pretty much the same. I just came to realize that I am entitled to detach from him. Your little boy is too young not to take care of, but you can mentally detach from some of his stuff as long as you are careful to make sure that other siblings and animals are safe from him. One thing we parents do is put alarms on the doors at night so they can't "night-wander" and maybe do damage at night. My son was a much loved baby and child, but I had serious depression after his birth and maybe that caused his issues. And then maybe he inherited it. There are other people in my family who seem to lack empathy, although not to his extent. The genetics part was really out of my control.

Again, DO NOT waste time blaming yourself. DO take precautions if you still have animals or if you have young children. I am thinking normal parenting won't work for this child. You are not the only one here with a child who is violent.

 

[SquirrelBait]

As said already he needs full evaluation. When ours started hurting people we blamed it on everything. Then he attacked the nicest woman you could every meet that has always done so much for him. We had him admited and they detoxic him and added mood disorder to his list.

 

[InsaneCdn]

I'm coming to the conclusion that there isn't anything I can do and that this is my life.

We've been there done that... and sometimes, we have to stop and catch a breath, but... we soldier on.

Have you ever read the book "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene? Many of us have used the concepts, or at least wrapped our head around his different approach in thinking about challenging kids. It really changed my thinking and approach (although we don't use CPS much, the assumption that "kids do well when they CAN" works far better than the usual assumption that "kids do well when they WANT to")

If he is attachment disordered... even that approach won't help much. The logic for attachment disorders goes contrary to everything most parenting sites and books and experts (except attachment disorder experts) will tell you. There is a site out there somewhere that was originally for kids adopted from China, but has an extensive section on attachment disorders including insecure attachment. I think it's called something like attach-china.org